Live

BON IVER, MEGAFAUN

RIALTO THEATRE

Monday, Sept. 28

The increasingly acclaimed Bon Iver—aka Justin
Vernon—brought his folkloric feel to a Rialto Theatre brimming
with fans eager to hear what the buzz was all about. Vernon’s former
bandmates in DeYarmond Edison, who currently constitute Megafaun, had
the charge of warming up the streaming-in crowd.

Three shaggy men, two of them brothers, walked onstage right out of
O Brother, Where Art Thou? Referring to themselves as Vernon’s
“hired help,” they won over the horde quickly with backwoods harmonies,
beautiful melodies and an array of banjo, guitar and mandolin. The hour
set preposterously ended with a Hendrix-esque escapade of distortion.
Megafaun clearly had a wicked sense of self-deprecating humor, throwing
out a Deliverance reference, a nod to their recent Club Congress
show and an idea for a T-shirt: “More Banjo, Less Pants.”

Bon Iver sounds sublime on his records. His cathartic
cabin-in-the-woods release, 2007’s For Emma, Forever Ago, is
already the stuff of legend, with its pitched, tracked vocals, austere
instruments and lyrical prose. But can a troubadour like Vernon
translate the intimate material live, and command a cavernous venue?
The answer is yes: The virtuoso surpassed wildest expectations, and a
tremendous PA system proved a perfect conduit for Vernon’s phenomenal
style—a minimalist approach in which less equals much more. There
were moments of utter silence as the crowd fixated on Vernon’s
voice.

Opener “Skinny Love” had three drummers pounding singular beats in
unison, as Vernon strummed an elegant steel guitar. He pulled material
from the Emma and the Blood Bank EP, and threw in a few
unfamiliar songs, including a psychedelic jam. Vernon nailed the vocal
harmonies by employing three instrument-jumping backup players, all of
whom sang amazingly, meshing with his trademark falsetto.

Bon Iver was extremely gracious to Tucson, the venue and the fans,
comically stating that we were “polite and energetic, a Venn diagram
that’s blowing my mind.” After an encore of “The Wolves,” in which he
got the crowd to sing along in a crescendo, he was joined for a second
encore by Megafaun. The two bands unplugged, came front and center
stage, and played a beautiful Megafaun song dedicated to the drummer’s
wife. At this point, the concert felt more like a tent revival, the
spirit of which wafted outside, onto Congress Street.

This article appears in Oct 8-14, 2009.